


Fight Me

by squadrickchestopher



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Hospitals, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nurse Bucky Barnes, Pneumonia, Pre-Slash, Sick Clint Barton, Tumblr Prompt, bucky just rolls with it, clint is an asshole when he's sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squadrickchestopher/pseuds/squadrickchestopher
Summary: Clint's usual MO when he's sick is to make everyone else around him as miserable as he is. So when he winds up in the hospital with pneumonia, he manages to scare away every nurse except one—a tall, handsome guy with a metal arm and a seemingly endless amount of patience for Clint's shenanigans.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 24
Kudos: 339





	Fight Me

Clint is not sick. He’s _not_.

Sure, he’s actively coughing up a lung, and he feels like he’s breathing wet gravel every time he inhales, and he might be running a slight temperature of 104. But it’ll pass. It’s just the flu. 

He tells himself this for at least two days of misery. On the third day, Natasha comes to check up on him. She takes one look at him, burritoed up in at least seven blankets, and signs _hospital._

“Absolutely not,” Clint says, feeling his voice in his chest.

Nat shoves his hearing aids at him. “I wasn’t asking your opinion,” she says, once he reluctantly puts them in.

“It’s just a flu, Nat. It’ll be fine.”

She smiles sweetly at him. “Then you can either go to the hospital with just a flu, or you can go with just a flu and some broken bones. Up to you.”

“I’ll fight you,” Clint says, but the effect is somewhat ruined by a coughing fit that’s long enough and hard enough to make him hurl. When he finally picks his head up out of the trash can, she’s looking at him with an _I told you so_ expression. “Fine,” he grumbles. “Help me up.”

Natasha drives him to the emergency room. Clint’s rarely been—unless something is shattered or he’s actively bleeding to death, he tries to avoid hospitals—and it looks crowded as hell inside. Clint begrudgingly fills out the clipboard of paperwork and hands it back to the harried nurse, then sits down in one of the uncomfortable chairs. Next to him is a twitchy little guy wearing three different winter hats and a tank top, which seems like an odd combination. He offers Clint a toothless grin. “Wanna buy some weed?”

“Tasha,” Clint whines, turning to her. He starts to stand. “I don’t like this. Just take me back. I’ll be fine.”

Her hand tightens around his wrist. “Sit down,” she says, tone pleasant. “Or I will _make_ you sit down.”

He reluctantly sinks back into the chair. “Why couldn’t we just go to SHIELD?” 

“Because you don’t work there anymore, and you pissed off all the nurses last time we brought you in.”

“Because I was _shot_ , and they were asking me stupid questions.”

“That’s their job, you stupid boy. Now shut up and listen for your name.”

It takes them nearly three hours to call him back, by which time he’s been offered weed, heroin, crack, and ecstasy by the twitchy guy next to him. Clint eventually ends up throwing up on his shoes, which doesn’t phase the guy, but alarms a nurse enough to get _finally_ him a bed. 

After a chest X-ray and too much poking and prodding, a doctor walks in the room with a swagger that makes Clint want to punch him. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” he says, not looking sorry at all, “but you’ve got a nasty case of pneumonia!”

“Great,” Clint rasps. “Make it go away.”

“Be nice,” Natasha chides him. “He’s doing his job.”

“He’s a prick.”

“You don’t know him. It’s not his fault.”

“That he’s a prick?”

“That you’re sick. So stop taking it out on him.”

The doctor watches this exchange with mild confusion, the pleased expression fading from his eyes. Good. Let him be as miserable as Clint is. The whole world should be this freaking miserable. 

He says more things that Clint doesn’t really hear and doesn’t care to listen to. Natasha nods and takes notes and asks all the right questions. Clint just slumps against the table and hates his life. 

They take him upstairs, his case apparently severe enough to need monitoring and oxygen therapy. They stick him with a couple IVs, and put a nasal cannula in his nose, and tape something to his finger. The only reason Clint doesn’t pull it all off is because Natasha stays and watches the entire time. As soon as he reaches for the IV, she clears her throat.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he says, but he lets his hand drop anyway. She smirks.

“Go to sleep,” she tells him. “You need to rest.”

“I need more pillows.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’m sick,” he wheedles. “I want more pillows.”

The door opens, and a tall guy walks in. Fever dream, Clint thinks at first, because he’s ridiculously handsome and there’s no way someone like that exists in real life. Tall, and stubbly underneath a surgical mask, with slightly longer dark hair that’s pulled into a little man-bun. Normally Clint would endlessly make fun of that, but on this guy it just looks so damn good that he just wants to touch it. 

“Hey,” the guy says. “I’m Bucky. I’m your nurse.”

“I’m Clint.”

“I know.” The guy smiles at him. “I brought you more pillows.”

“I love you,” Clint tells him. 

Bucky laughs and helps him arrange the pillows. He’s big and broad-shouldered under those tailored scrubs, and his arms will probably be the death of Clint. He _loves_ a good pair of biceps. Although in this case it’s only one biceps, since the left arm is a wicked-looking full length prosthetic. Clint touches the black metal as Bucky arranges a blanket over him. “Cool,” he says, and Bucky looks slightly pleased. “Where’s the original?”

“In pieces in Afghanistan,” Bucky tells him. “This is a Stark prototype.”

“I’ve heard of that program,” Natasha says. “What do you think of it?”

Bucky shrugs. “It works. Gives me a functional arm again. This is the second generation, it’s a little less bulky than the first one.” He pats Clint’s arm. “Here’s your call button if you need me, okay?”

_I need you in this bed with me, please and thank you._ “Yeah. Okay.”

Bucky leaves the room, and Natasha drops into the bedside chair. “He’s cute.”

“He’s mine,” Clint says fiercely. “I claim him.”

She laughs. “Fine. You can have him if you promise not to pull out your lines.”

Clint scowls at her and pulls out his hearing aids instead, dropping them on the bedside table.

He sleeps after that, the medications making him too drowsy to do anything else. It’s not a good sleep. His fever is still high and he’s still coughing, despite practically sleeping upright. Natasha watches him with concerned eyes from the chair, which is how he knows it’s a pretty bad deal. She’s seen him through some nasty stuff, but she’s never looked like that before. 

“Am I dying?” he asks at one point.

She rolls her eyes and signs _Don’t be dramatic, Clint._ But she still looks concerned. 

His fever goes up and down. He hallucinates. They give him more medication. At one point, he wakes up and there’s a giant _tube_ coming out of him, which almost sends him into a panic attack. Natasha grabs his hands before he can yank it out. When he quits struggling in her grip, she puts his aids in for him and squeezes his hands, speaking slowly and clearly. “It’s just a chest tube. It’s helping your lungs drain. Do _not_ pull it out.”

“Hurts,” he wheezes.

“I know,” she says, pressing her forehead to his. She looks worried underneath the mask. “I know, Clint. I’m sorry.”

He leaves the tube alone, but it hurts like a _bitch_ when he coughs. Which is all the time.

Bucky checks on him constantly. Clint is pretty sure he picks up extra shifts, because he’s there a _lot_. Not that Clint is complaining, but he does wonder when the guy sleeps. Or if he even needs sleep. He’s a cyborg, after all. Maybe he’s all robot with a human skin. Like Westworld. 

Bucky laughs when Clint tells him this. “I’m human,” he assures Clint, checking his vitals. 

“Yeah?” Clint asks. 

“Yeah.” Bucky smoothes his hair back. “I promise.”

“I like cyborgs,” Clint tells him, because it’s important that he knows this. “Cyborgs are hot.”

“Good to know.” Bucky gives him more medicine, and Clint falls asleep watching him.

The fever breaks after a week, and the antibiotics finally start to kick in. Natasha loses the worried look in her eyes, although she still sits with him during the day. 

Clint is fairly pliable for awhile once he starts improving—probably because he’s sleeping for most of it—but then he enters the “getting well enough to be a crabby bitch” phase of recovery, and starts making everyone’s life miserable. Natasha stays, because she’s used to it and can dish it right back. And surprisingly, so does Bucky. 

It’s a bit of a novelty, because Clint’s never been able to keep a nurse longer than a few days. His irritability is legendary at SHIELD. But Bucky just takes his snarkiness in stride and brings Clint everything he demands. Which makes him feel like a a major asshole, but he has a hard time stopping himself. 

Four days after the fever breaks, Clint is buried under his mountain of pillows when Bucky comes into his view. He waits patiently until Clint scowls and puts his aids in. “Vitals check,” he says.

“Fight me,” Clint tells him, pulling his arms in. He’s so sick of having his blood pressure taken. 

“Maybe later,” Bucky tells him as he moves the pillows. “I have to discharge a patient after this.”

“Is it me?”

“It is not you.”

“Damn.” He lets Bucky take his arm. “Can it be me tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

A couple hours later, he returns with a tray of medications and a red Jell-O. “I brought you a snack,” he says. “Also drugs.”

“Fight me,” Clint says. 

“Maybe later. I still haven’t discharged that patient yet.” He sets the tray down.

“No more drugs,” Clint whines. “I’m tired of being tired.”

“It’s just antibiotics. You need these.”

“I do not,” Clint says. “I’m fine now. Fever’s broke. I’m good.” He sits up a little bit. 

“Mmm,” Bucky says, getting the bag ready. 

“I’m _fine_.” As soon as he gets the words out, though, he’s seized by another coughing fit. It’s a particularly brutal one, to the point where he has to brace a pillow against his chest. He still manages a side-eyed glare at Bucky, who’s just watching with a calm expression. 

“Fight me,” he says again, as soon as he has the breath for it. 

“Nah,” Bucky says, smiling under his mask. Clint can see the way his eyes crinkle. He likes it. “I think you’d win, honestly.” 

“You have a metal arm,” he points out.

“You have heart,” Bucky says. “I don’t know many people who would survive a week of nasty pneumonia, hack up a lung, and then tell the nearest guy to fight them. I think you’d take me out.”

Clint smiles despite himself. “We should test that theory.” 

“Tell you what,” Bucky says. “How about you let me give you your antibiotics, and we’ll see if you’re up to it when they’re done.”

“Fine.” Clint begrudgingly extends his arm and lets Bucky do his thing. 

It’s two more days before they _finally_ let him out of the hospital, by which point Bucky is pretty much the only one who’ll come in his room. He knocks on the door a few hours after lunch and waves a packet in the air. “Discharge papers!” 

“Give them to me,” Clint says, grabbing for them. “I need to get out of here. I forgot what the sun feels like. I’ve been in here for an eternity. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Natasha snorts from her position by the window. “Dramatic,” she says. 

“Am not,” Clint shoots back.

“You are,” Bucky says. “But it’s kind of funny.” He sits down and hands Clint a cup. “Listen to me for a couple minutes so I can get you out of here, okay?”

Clint inspects the cup. It’s coffee— _real_ coffee, from the gift shop downstairs. Not the crap they brew up here. “Is this bribery?”

“Yes.” Bucky grins at him. “Gonna fight me?”

“Not over coffee,” Clint says, taking a sip. It’s like heaven in his mouth. “Oh my _god_.”

Bucky goes over his discharge instructions, with a strong emphasis on how Clint needs to keep taking the antibiotics. “Seriously,” he says. “You _will_ end up back here if you stop early.”

“I’ll make sure he takes them,” Natasha says, a slight threat in her voice, and Clint ducks his head a little. 

“I’ll take them,” he says. “I promise.”

“Good.” Bucky takes the packet and tucks the papers back into it. “Okay. Well. The CNA is gonna help you get dressed, and take out the IVs, and I’ll call transport. Sound good?”

_Rather have you help me,_ Clint thinks, but he nods all the same.

Thirty minutes later—and after Natasha threatens him into the wheelchair—he’s _finally_ leaving the unit. He waves at the nurses, most of whom look glad to see him go, and grins at Bucky, who grins back. It’s a nice smile, exactly how Clint had imagined it would look when it was hidden under the mask. Clint likes it. 

His apartment is cleaner than he left it. Natasha shrugs when he asks her. “I was bored.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he says, because it’s very true.

“No, you don’t.” She hugs him anyway, holding on a little longer than she normally might. “Sit down before you fall down, and let me look at those papers.” 

He hands her the packet and sits at the kitchen table. She rifles through them. “I’ll drop your prescription off at the pharmacy for you,” she says. “And pick up some soup.”

“I have soup,” he protests.

“You have expired soup,” she corrects. “I’ll take care of it. Did you ask that nurse out?”

Clint blinks. “What?”

“Bucky. Did you ask him out?”

“Oh.” Clint shakes his head. “No.”

“Did you want to?”

“Well, yeah. But I don’t think he’s interested. I was kind of a dick to him. I should get him a thank you card or something.”

Natasha flicks through his papers. “No, I’m pretty sure he’s interested.”

“How do you know?”

She shoves something at him. A receipt, from the gift shop. For the coffee. Underneath the blacked out total is a string of digits that could only be a phone number, followed a smiley face and the words “fight me?”

Clint grins at the paper and then up at Natasha, who’s got an eyebrow raised and a hint of a smile on her face. “I’m going to go out,” she says. “Get you some stuff. You should rest.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down at the receipt. “Rest. Sure.”

She pats his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says softly, fingers tightening on him. “Don’t do that to me again.”

“Promise,” Clint says, covering her hand with his, eyes fixed on the smiley face looking up at him. He rubs his thumb over the numbers on the receipt, thinking about Bucky’s smile and his man-bun and how he’d taken Clint’s moods in stride, never letting it phase him. Granted, he was getting paid for it, but he could have just done what the other nurses did, which was get in and out as quick as possible. Instead, he’d brought Clint extra pillows and red Jell-O and bribed him with coffee. He’d been _nice_.

“Call him,” Natasha says, squeezing his shoulder. “Anyone who hangs around _you_ while you’re sick is worth knowing.”

“You flatter yourself,” he says, but he smiles up at her all the same. 

“Call him,” she says again, setting his phone on the table. “I’m going to go get your drugs.” She kisses his forehead and picks up her bag.

“Have fun,” Clint says as the door closes. He looks at the numbers one more time, and taps his fingers on the table, thinking of the possibilities. 

Then he picks up the phone and dials.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post, AGAIN, because I can't scroll through there without seeing stories. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://feedmecookiesnow.tumblr.com/)


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